whats so special about anvils anyway?

[youngdylan]

I've got a Brooks 4 cwt in reasonable condition and was recently given an unknown (but looks like a Brooks) 1.25 cwt with a flat top but very ******d out edges (probably from a school)

A lot of guys your side of the pond seem to worship anvils, buff them up, put them on pedastals, spend far too much time repairing them, get hung up on sharp edges, put them in museums, dance naked on a full moon around them..... etc etc etc.

Me? they're just tools. Beast them, use them up, wear them out, get another. They're just tools, tools are used to earn my livelihood ... in the most cost effective way possible. I love tools. Second hand ones over here are plentiful and cheap.

Sooooo .... an hour or two with a 9" grinder and I'd modified one used tool into another more useful tool. Ground a few massive radii on most of the edges. Under cut one of the sides to get a bit of small radius near the table. But most importantly of all ground that "funny" shape near the hardy hole. Yeah yeah yeah I know it's two piece anvil, yeah yeah yeah I know it weakens it .... but no-one really pounds on this area .... do they? ....They don't do they?

It was just going to be an "occasional" anvil but to be honest I use far more than the 4cwt (I've got 3 power hammers). Those big and varying radiuses are so useful, much more so than the crisp edge bit. It's also good being only 64kg, I can boot it round the room as needs be. Hey, farriers anvils weigh very little .... and those guys do some serious forging.

That bit on the end is just incredibly useful ...... If I only had one anvil I'd do that to it.

[fciron]

Looks good to me, I can see that bit on the tail being incredibly handy.

I agree with you about some of the anvil worship. Unless you have photographic evidence of Paul Revere using it a mousehole anvil is most valuable as a tool, not an historical relic.

[Mainely,Bob]

With very few exceptions any tool is just a starting point and needs some tweaking and tuning to fit the operator.
I must say I am a bit disappointed though,no deep grooves in the face to straighten RR spikes.

So what`s wrong with dancing naked around your anvil during the full moon?
The neighbors only complain when I start howling.

[Timothy Miller]

Some people like to collect things. The blacksmiths that used these anvils contributed in no small way to help to build this country. So basically if you trash an antique anvil you have destroyed a piece of history. In America we don't have a lot of history there are no castles, roman walls or stone henge. Old tools represent the the building of America and the values and hard work of the people who did it. I think to people who understand blacksmithing the anvil sort of represents the ultimate tool, the tool that can make anything or make the tools to make anything. Also I think there is a trend to put up our industrial period up as a sort of golden age for America. People collect old lathes and painstakingly restore them why not anvils. You can go to on line and buy a new Brooks anvil any day of the week. So it is no big deal to modify one to suit your purposes. But if you were to do that to a 200 year old wrought iron anvil most of us would wonder what you were thinking. Honestly I think the older anvils are beautiful. Old anvils are hard to find and new ones are generally expensive. Older anvils were made by processes that are no longer used. Forge welding large masses of wrought iron and tool steel or casting cast iron to tool steel. No one is going to recreate the skills and equipment to make themselves a historically correct anvil those things are lost.

[fciron]

What constitutes 'trashing' an anvil? What is the benefit of an 'historical' anvil sitting in my shop unused or, worse, making my work difficult because I refuse to clean up 200 years worth of wear and tear? Does it really hurt the historic value if we repair 20th century damage, like torch gouges and chisel marks?

Yes, there are anvil collectors and they are welcome to preserve their anvils however they see fit, but that doesn't mean that all anvils should be collected. I'm not advocating YoungDylan's approach for all anvils; most Mousehole anvils are already very thin behind the hardy hole. so it's not really necessary.

SouthShore, I suspect that we are going to continue to disagree.

[Timothy Miller]

"trashing' an anvil"
Welding on it for no good reason
Hitting it as hard as you can with a sledge hammer because it makes a cool sound
Using it as a torch cutting stand
Using a cold chisel directly on the face with no cutting pad
hammering only cold steel on the anvil for years and years
Repeatedly striking hardened steel on the face of the anvil
leaving it outside for half century or more
Drilling into the face
Welding stuff to it because you think you need a jig of some sort to do a job
striking a hammer directly on the edges
testing 50,000 cold chisels and center punches on the base of the anvil.

I never said carefully repairing an anvil to make it usable is wrong. I collect and use anvils I see both sides.

[Mainely,Bob]

Once a man plunks down his money and purchases an item it is his to do with as he sees fit.The only recourse anyone else has is to pony up whatever asking price he lays on it and then THEY have the right to do as they please with it.
I have returned many an abused tool to working condition and I used to get mad as I worked on them. "What the ---- were they thinking?" I`d say to myself as I worked to reforge and then heat treat something that only stupidity or rage could have produced.
History and reverence for techniques and craftsmanship long past have their place but the bottom line is that these things we are talking of are tools,meant to help us do work and produce things.
If the tools at hand don`t fulfill our needs then we own the right to modify them till they do.Their new configuration becomes a part of their history as much as the maker`s mark.The modifications become a chapter in the story of their lives as the tools they were made to be.
If you have any heartburn with this type of thinking then feel free to drive up to my shop with a comparable anvil from a present manufacturer in your truck and I will gladly trade you for my "bit of history".I`ll even write down it`s lineage as far as I know it before you go.

[fciron]

I think both of us agree that existing in latter half of the twentieth century was probably the greatest threat to any anvils that survived the scrap metal drives during WWII. I don't think either of us is going to be executing any radical modifications on an old Mousehole in the near future either.

In answer to the original question I think that the US may have had a shortage of 20th century anvils that leads us to see them as relics as much as tools. The perception is that vises, hammers and tongs are all available (in a way) at the corner hardware store, the anvil needs to exist on it's own before that. In the US lot of guys get started precisely because they somehow found themselves in possession of an anvil. I was in London for fifth form and I first got exposed to blacksmithing in my Design & Technology class. That may have a lot to do with the difference between American and UK smiths in their attitude towards the 'ancient craft' of blacksmithing. As SouthShore said, we don't have a lot of 500 year old buildings around, so tools from the early 19th century are part of the building of our country. Thus we get all misty eyed about busted old anvils. :rolleyes:

[Timothy Miller]

Once a man plunks down his money and purchases an item it is his to do with as he sees fit.The only recourse anyone else has is to pony up whatever asking price he lays on it and then THEY have the right to do as they please with it.
I have returned many an abused tool to working condition and I used to get mad as I worked on them. "What the ---- were they thinking?" I`d say to myself as I worked to reforge and then heat treat something that only stupidity or rage could have produced.
History and reverence for techniques and craftsmanship long past have their place but the bottom line is that these things we are talking of are tools,meant to help us do work and produce things.
If the tools at hand don`t fulfill our needs then we own the right to modify them till they do.Their new configuration becomes a part of their history as much as the maker`s mark.The modifications become a chapter in the story of their lives as the tools they were made to be.
If you have any heartburn with this type of thinking then feel free to drive up to my shop with a comparable anvil from a present manufacturer in your truck and I will gladly trade you for my "bit of history".I`ll even write down it`s lineage as far as I know it before you go.

My real question is why mess up your anvil when there is cheep abundant steel from witch to make tools and power hammers to do the heavy work. Its less about reverence for the past its more about mastery of blacksmithing techniques and using a tool with reasonable care so it lasts. instead of grinding a slope on the anvil why not make a sloped hardy tool. Then you can swap them out to change angles. Or make power hammer tools to do the job its faster than grinding away a pound of steel from an anvil. You will be actually be using forging techniques. If you banged out a life time of plow shears and shoes so you could eat and wore out your anvil well that's a different story. That old smith would probably be glad some one breathed new life into his old anvil. But to abuse/destroy a tool because you were unimaginative or careless is just sad especially when it had lasted 100+ years before you got it . Im not saying put it unger glass and wiping it with an oily rag every night. Just use it well.

[ThomasPowers]

I thought that Brooks were not 2 part anvils but single unit cast steel?

Old tools have always had the divide between "collectors" and "users"; however even a lot of the "users" decry "malicious" destruction of a rare item---but have no problem with restoration and *use*.

I have a steeled WI hammer head I picked up out of the mud under a scrap pile in England that I estimate to be over 150 years old. I cleaned it up, stuck a handle in it and *use* it---but I don't let my students use it as clumsy hammering on a hard faced anvil would be abuse of booth tools!

I have an 1828 William Foster anvil missing the heel and 90% of the face. I bought it to: 1 recycle the last bit of documented 1828 steel into a Fur Trade era knife and 2 to try to repair it in the traditional manner and then to *use* it.

I don't have enough room in the shop to "collect" tools!

[pete46]

ANVIL SHOOTERS; along with puppy kickers,& telemarketers should be horse whipped!
Really though, I had to hunt pretty hard for the anvils I have.
To see something that valuable[to me] wasted just sucks!

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

"trashing' an anvil"
Welding on it for no good reason
Hitting it as hard as you can with a sledge hammer because it makes a cool sound
Using it as a torch cutting stand
Using a cold chisel directly on the face with no cutting pad
hammering only cold steel on the anvil for years and years
Repeatedly striking hardened steel on the face of the anvil
leaving it outside for half century or more
Drilling into the face
Welding stuff to it because you think you need a jig of some sort to do a job
striking a hammer directly on the edges
testing 50,000 cold chisels and center punches on the base of the anvil.

I never said carefully repairing an anvil to make it usable is wrong. I collect and use anvils I see both sides.

I agree about 90%. I use a chisel on the face all the time and never put a mark on the anvil. Cutting plates encourage poor habits. And you get a few marks in the cutting plate it transfers to the work.

First shop I worked in, one of the first things I was shown was when sharpening a point or chisel to demonstrate to the customer that you got the temper right by ramming it into the side of the anvil. Customer was always impressed, they think the anvil is hard! Bit of showmanship and it never bothered the use of the anvil. Seems it was pretty common, you see a lot of anvils that way.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

I thought that Brooks were not 2 part anvils but single unit cast steel?

Depends on the "vintage". They made them like everyone else and then at some point started casting them.

[jmeineke]

So what`s wrong with dancing naked around your anvil during the full moon?
The neighbors only complain when I start howling.

Yeah, my neighbors hate it when I howl - is nothing sacred anymore?

You have to agree that it is a nice looking hardy tool on the end of that anvil, though

[ThomasPowers]

See the markings on that anvil standing proud of the side---it's cast.

However you are right I should have said "that vintage of Brooks"

[youngdylan]

See the markings on that anvil standing proud of the side---it's cast.

However you are right I should have said "that vintage of Brooks"

Anvils and their history really isn't my thing so I'm not really up on the different types but were steel faces only welded to wrought bodies or did they weld steel faces to cast bodies as well?. Yeah the bodies cast but I'm 99.9% sure the top is welded one. Before grinding out all the chunks missing from the edges you could see a clear line running all the way round the face about 1/2" below the top. It's still just about visible in photos 1-3

[youngdylan]

Some people like to collect things. The blacksmiths that used these anvils contributed in no small way to help to build this country. So basically if you trash an antique anvil you have destroyed a piece of history. In America we don't have a lot of history there are no castles, roman walls or stone henge. Old tools represent the the building of America and the values and hard work of the people who did it. I think to people who understand blacksmithing the anvil sort of represents the ultimate tool, the tool that can make anything or make the tools to make anything. Also I think there is a trend to put up our industrial period up as a sort of golden age for America. People collect old lathes and painstakingly restore them why not anvils. You can go to on line and buy a new Brooks anvil any day of the week. So it is no big deal to modify one to suit your purposes. But if you were to do that to a 200 year old wrought iron anvil most of us would wonder what you were thinking. Honestly I think the older anvils are beautiful. Old anvils are hard to find and new ones are generally expensive. Older anvils were made by processes that are no longer used. Forge welding large masses of wrought iron and tool steel or casting cast iron to tool steel. No one is going to recreate the skills and equipment to make themselves a historically correct anvil those things are lost.

Yeah I can go with all of that but to be honest I'd have done the same WHATEVER make it was. It was made as a tool to be used as tool and doing what I've done means it can still used a tool, only it's more useful than it was when it was new. It was not made just to be a part of history. EVERYTHING ever made is part of history.

My mother had what I think was called a 17th century or 18th or something century post colonial 5 foot anvil ... or something like that. My old man found it in a pig sty and used it as a doorstop. My mum offered it to me when he passed away. I thought (and still do) it was as ugly as sin and no use to me as tool. She put it up on ebay. Dozens of bids, went for hundreds and one of you guys bought it. I stored in in a toilet (no rooom in workshop) for months until he came over here. He'd a shipping container and was hoovering up just about any relic he could find (dealer or something). When he came to my workhop he could NOT have been any less interested (just to discuss) the tools in my workhop or my workshop itself (too modern for the "wierdo" I guess). Red rag to bull there, what's worse he constantly kept forcing the conversation onto telling me to look out for any other old tools that may have been of interest to him. If I could have been bothered looking out for any, I'd have far rather sold them for scrap than passed them on to him. Who knows how helpful I could have been to him as working blacksmith with contacts and no interest in collecting things myself. If only he'd have at least feigned some interest in 20th centuary tools.

[edge9001]

With very few exceptions any tool is just a starting point and needs some tweaking and tuning to fit the operator.
I must say I am a bit disappointed though,no deep grooves in the face to straighten RR spikes.

So what`s wrong with dancing naked around your anvil during the full moon?
The neighbors only complain when I start howling.

There is nothing wrong with dancing naked around your anvil, as long as you have the body to be dancing naked, or atleast a private enough area to dance in...some in the neighborhood just wouldn't uderstand.

[youngdylan]

If the tools at hand don`t fulfill our needs then we own the right to modify them till they do.Their new configuration becomes a part of their history as much as the maker`s mark.The modifications become a chapter in the story of their lives as the tools they were made to be.

As ever Bob you're on the money there but especially so with especially so with the above.

[Timothy Miller]

I agree about 90%. I use a chisel on the face all the time and never put a mark on the anvil. Cutting plates encourage poor habits. And you get a few marks in the cutting plate it transfers to the work.

First shop I worked in, one of the first things I was shown was when sharpening a point or chisel to demonstrate to the customer that you got the temper right by ramming it into the side of the anvil. Customer was always impressed, they think the anvil is hard! Bit of showmanship and it never bothered the use of the anvil. Seems it was pretty common, you see a lot of anvils that way.

I have seen anvils with the feet nearly cut off from testing cold chisels. That's why I said 50,000. Some anvils are a bit on the soft side so the face can get damaged fro cutting directly on it. especially by an inexperienced smith or careless worker. I do sometimes cut right on my anvil face with cold chisels as well but only when I am doing light work. I am talking about cold work not hot work. You hot cut should not be that hard.

[youngdylan]

instead of grinding a slope on the anvil why not make a sloped hardy tool.

A little to do with slope on the top South, but MUCH more to to do with the under cutting that means I can get at the inner curves of some acute angles on Art Nouveau curves and still have the stability that the mass of the anvil gives and it is at a far more convenient height than a stake in a vice, and it's always there on the end of the anvil whenever I need it, which I do a lot. No time wasted finding and setting up whatever the alternative is.

[youngdylan]

Its less about reverence for the past its more about mastery of blacksmithing techniques

I'm not really bothered about the mastery of blacksmith techniques, I more often than not avoid calling myself one, I certainly don't want to unimaginatively and boring keep repeating that past. I DO however adore USING and experimenting (and hence learning along MY own path) with metalworking tools, a lot of my life revolves around that. I would quite happily chop a mousehole anvil (whatever one of those is) in half if i thought it was furthering what I do.

[Timothy Miller]

Yeah I can go with all of that but to be honest I'd have done the same WHATEVER make it was. It was made as a tool to be used as tool and doing what I've done means it can still used a tool, only it's more useful than it was when it was new. It was not made just to be a part of history. EVERYTHING ever made is part of history.

My mother had what I think was called a 17th century or 18th or something century post colonial 5 foot anvil ... or something like that. My old man found it in a pig sty and used it as a doorstop. My mum offered it to me when he passed away. I thought (and still do) it was as ugly as sin and no use to me as tool. She put it up on ebay. Dozens of bids, went for hundreds and one of you guys bought it. I stored in in a toilet (no rooom in workshop) for months until he came over here. He'd a shipping container and was hoovering up just about any relic he could find (dealer or something). When he came to my workhop he could NOT have been any less interested (just to discuss) the tools in my workhop or my workshop itself (too modern for the "wierdo" I guess). Red rag to bull there, what's worse he constantly kept forcing the conversation onto telling me to look out for any other old tools that may have been of interest to him. If I could have been bothered looking out for any, I'd have far rather sold them for scrap than passed them on to him. Who knows how helpful I could have been to him as working blacksmith with contacts and no interest in collecting things myself. If only he'd have at least feigned some interest in 20th centuary tools.

Well you asked

whats so special about anvils anyway?

So I responded to the best of my ability.

[youngdylan]

Tong in cheek there South. I'm never happier than when rattling cages or being irreverant. I can see your point, ...and respect it.

But to me USING a tool outranks preserving history many times over.

[Timothy Miller]

I love a good debate. I am not that much of a traditionalist as you think. I just feel that The old guys knew a lot more about forging than I do or most of us ever will. I'm talking about the real masters not the run of the mill part time village smith. I find that looking in an old book or looking at old work more often leads you to the best results what ever the style. They just knew more about forging. They could not pick a welder or a grinder and fix a mistake easily or join anything to anything. They had to think ahead and plan out the steps to make a forged piece. I often see old work that is a hundred or more years old that is in reasonably good shape and still serving its function. Wile you see stuff from the 20th century that is falling apart and and poorly designed and executed. They had all the technology and what did they do with it, they made cheap junk. I'm not saying don't innovate. I just think trying to innovate in blacksmithing Is a very tall order. So much has already been done. I love technology and new equipment. Your talking to a guy who last month made a wrought iron steel hammer yet owns a Tig welder, cold saw, milling machine, air hammer and lathe. I do whatever jobs I get appropriately. If the customer wants forge welded wrought iron i do that, If they want aluminum Tig welded with a powder coat finish I do that too. But I don't pass off steel as wrought iron or brass as bronze I call things exactly what they are and take the time to explain this to my customers.